Bins overflowing?
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Overflowing bins? Rubbish blowing in the door while ambulances unload patients? According to a ‘Journal’ reader this has become all too common a site at Derry’s Altnagelvin hospital each weekend.

The reader, who asked that her name be withheld from publication, said she had cause to visit the hospital over the last number of weeks while attending to a sick relative and that each weekend the bins outside the hospital entrances were “left to overflow”.

“This is the entrance to our hospital and yet when you visit A&E at the weekends, before you even get through the doors, you are greeted with rubbish blowing around your feet, cardboard boxes stacked up beside the bins and the bins filled to capacity.”

The caller claims she contacted the hospital to express her concerns about the mess she encountered to be told by a Trust official that no one was at duty on weekends to empty bins or deal with litter in hospital grounds.

“There is no sense in this. Surely the weekends are the busiest times for A&E? Patients should not have to be greeted with sights such as these, or have to dodge litter blowing about their feet as they walk into the hospital.“Surely it wouldn’t be a huge imposition to keep this area clean and tidy?”

The Western Trust were asked by the Derry Journal to comment on this issue but had not responded by the time of going to press.